Occupy London

[glasnost]

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Well, why not MNers?

What have your kids got to lose? In NY there are alot of families with children protesting and occupying that doesn't get mentioned in the mainstream press.

Maybe I'm missing something here but whoever associated Haw to the Occupy London protest anyway? It's beside the point. And the points are forever being wilfully obfuscated in this debate. Ie: why the protesters are there in the first place.

It all seems like rather an epic fail now. They are on the very edge of the City, out of sight and out of mind of the Square Mile. The whole thing now seems like a battle between a bunch of squatters and St Paul's cathedral. I don't think most of the world knows what they are there for or what they want to achieve other than in the very vaguest sense, ie they're a bit pissed off and want some sort of change, just not really sure what but it involves everyone being a bit nicer. Fantastic, how's that for a battle cry and a roadmap to a better future.

I was there last weekend and it just seemed aimless, lots of posing for tourist photos, some groups of earnest looking people discussing how they would change the world if they were in charge whilst tucking into their M&S lentil salads. St Paul's has now given them the whiff of battle, I get the impression they want the police to break it up, that way they get to punctuate it with some good media pics of being oppressed by The Man and can finally go home without losing face. Otherwise it will just drift on and on and the world will carry on as it was, with the protest becoming an ever increasing irrelevance.

You wish.

Canon Giles Fraser has said that Jesus would've been one of the protesters.

The Christian thinktank Ecclesia has criticised the Church's hierarchy for not supporting the protest.

If they allow the police to break up the protest with force they risk ruining their reputation.

Interesting phone-in on this topic on 5 Live right now.

The Daily Mail's excellent Quentin Letts said "good on teh protestors for protesting" and said he thinks the Church has made a hash of it and he can't see what the problem is with a few tents at the site.

Scuppers my theory that YOU are Quentin Letts, claig!

How could you have been on 5 Live and Anti capitalism thread simultaneously?

I am not Quentin, but he is a very funny writer and an all round jolly good egg, as are all Daily Mail journalists [swink]

But would Quentin be as positive about the protest if those "few" (hundred) tents became a few thousand? As long as establishment voices such as his can afford to paternalistically support the movement it sends the tacit message that it constitutes no real threat.

Possibly, but there are lots of people who support capitalism who were against Labour's light touch regulation of banks and who were against casino capitalism and politicians bailing bankers out with the public's money. Vince Cable supports capitalism, but not casino capitalism.

NU Labour's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please. I consider myself a Labour supporter but Bevan's Labour and Hardie's Labour - not this abysmal shower!! Who have NOTHING to say about the Occupy movement. How could they?

Exactly

As I said, the woke thing is now about the stand off with St Paul's. Every recent article has been about that. Few seem to remember exactly why they are there, it has just taken over from Dale Farm and every other story about squatters refusing to move. The original purpose is lost.

I do wonder at what point the right to protest morphed into the right to pitch a tent on someone else's land and then refuse to move for weeks on end. One was quoted as saying you can't invite someone onto your property and then tell them to leave. I'm sorry? Isn't that exactly what you can do when it's your property?

Oops, for "woke" read "whole"

I don't really understand it. Who owns the streets, the pavements, the lampposts and the squares? Who pays to fix the potholes and to clear the square of litter? Is it the Church or is it the people?

I wouldn't be surprised if the protestors haven't been set up by progressives within their movement to lead them up the garden path to St Paul's and to deflect attention from their friends, the bankers.

Many progressives are against religion and the Church, so this is a double whammy for them. Criticise the Church and neutralise the protestors, thus helping their friends, the bankers.

The Corporation of the City of London own it. The square mile's local authority.

From wikipedia:

The City of London Corporation has long come in for criticism due to its unusual form of governance.
"The corporation is a group of hangers-on, who create what is known as the best dining club in the City ... a rotten borough." - John McDonnell, during the debates on the Ward Elections Act.[15]
"Nowadays, with its Lord Mayor, its Beadles, Sheriffs and Aldermen, its separate police force and its select electorate of freemen and liverymen, the City of London is an anachronism of the worst kind. The Corporation, which runs the City like a one-party mini-state, is an unreconstructed old boys' network whose medievalist pageantry camouflages the very real power and wealth which it holds." - pp110, Rough Guide to England, 2006
An attempt was made to amalgamate the corporation with the local government structures serving the rest of London at the end of the 19th century. A Royal Commission on the Amalgamation of the City and County of London reported a mechanism for this to be achieved in 1894. However, the amalgamation did not take place.

This is becoming obfuscation here. The movement is in no way against the Church. They're out cleaning the steps and area in preparation for its reopening. It's the Church's hierarchy (after an initial welcome from the now resigned Canon Fraser) that are against the protest but can't come out and say it explicitly as that would bely their true credentials so spurious reasons are given and the Cathedral is dramatically and needlessly closed for a few days.

Once again the reasons why the protest began are obfuscated. And the fact the movement as a whole is gaining in momentum globally.

'The movement is in no way against the Church'

Is the movement united? Does it have common or disparate aims?
My guess is that there are some influential members of the movement who want to deflect the movement from focusing on bank bailouts.

If there were they would be infiltrators, claig, which only people (and not sheeple) of strong resolve and autonomous thought could counter.

BUT bank bailouts were the equivalent of Marx's tiger (capitalism) eating the tail of the state before consuming itself and cannot be taken out of the context of the system that generated the problem in the first place so to overly fixate on just that would be reductive I feel. (I'm not a spokesperson).

And claig if you wanna know more about the movement why dontcha get yourself down to one? There are Occupations going on all over - not just in London. www.occupybritain.co.uk/

"Maybe I'm missing something here but whoever associated Haw to the Occupy London protest anyway?"

Um, you did. Your post at Sun 23-Oct-11 13:37:04.

I support the Parliament Square protest, even after Haws death. It's focused, with specified aims, is targeted at the people who could, if minded, make those aims happen, and has not caused any losses to random third parties.

Clutching at Haws are you? It's Friday today and you drag out a 5 day old post. Weird.

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/28/st-pauls-injunction-evict-occupy-london

Seems you've been missing quite a bit too, meditrina, such as the foregone conclusion here. I posted re. the inevitable outcome once the elf and safety smokescreen was set up.

I never associated him with the movement anyway.

The health and safety had been dealt with - the camp as changed its layout and the Cathedral has reopened.

It's a shame that they did not do this earlier. Very silly of them.